Ooma adds Wi-Fi option for free VoIP service, extends Bluetooth service, too

Free VoIP provider Ooma has rolled out a new Wi-Fi adapter that allows owners of its Telo base station to add wireless functionality to their Internet phone service. The company also announced it was extending the availability of its Ooma Bluetooth service.

Telo base with Ooma Telo Air wireless adapter

The Ooma Telo Air wireless adapter, which sells for $50, allows users to place the base station anywhere in the home within range of a Wi-Fi network. Dennis Peng, Ooma's VP of product development, told FierceEnterpriseCommunications that the company overcame the difficulty of transmitting VoIP over Wi-Fi by using its PureVoice HD technology with advanced voice compression and adaptive redundancy.

"Normally, Wi-Fi is not a great medium for transmitting voice," Peng said. "But with our voice technology, technology that's unique to Ooma, we were able to overcome that." PureVoice was developed and introduced a year ago, he said, and delivers up to twice the fidelity of standard phone calls for a richer, more natural sounding conversation.

Ooma's advanced voice codec reduces the bandwidth required, and is more compressible than others, Peng said. The base station, the Telo, is loaded with CPU horsepower, and can monitor QoS over Internet connections. If, for example, Ooma detects packet loss, Ooma adds information about previous frames into each packet, increasing redundancy, so that even if one or two get lost, all the information is included.

Ooma launched targeting residential telephone service, but the product is ideal for small business startups and home-based businesses as well.

The Telo, which is a full router, with the Wi-Fi option can be used as a bridge for other wireless devices.

"Ooma is a very capable platform to build on," Peng said. "SMB is a space we're very interested in, and, with the increase in workers telecommuting, this easily can fit into an enterprise's plans."

Ooma's plan to expand its Bluetooth service, which previously was available only to Ooma Premier subscribers--a $10 monthly plan that gives users additional services--allows users to tie their mobile phone into the Ooma service as well. The $30 adapter makes it possible for users to answer mobile phone calls on any home phone without worry of poor reception or dropped calls. It provides a transmission range of up to 30 feet and supports up to seven Bluetooth devices.

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